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Sometimes I feel these "artists" don't have any true talent, so they use their own agendas, call themselves "artists" and get the attention they otherwise would never get.
I don't know of any true artist that would commit a cruel act such as starving a dog to death to make his or her statement; in fact, every artist I know has a kind heart and prefers to express any view without malice or cruelty. We can be made to think without extremism.
Art is subjective. I see colorful graffiti and think "how fantastic!" while others think "those assholes with spraypaint should be horsewhipped".
Art should evoke, invoke and provoke. Emotions, thought, awareness come from experiencing art and I think sometimes these performance artists feel they're doing what they do to bring emotions and thought out. But when the consensus is that what is being done is not thought provoking but just plain wrong or gross, then it can be said it was not art. But, how many leave a gallery in deep discussion about a sunset?
Curators have a moral obligation? To an extent. But it is their job to get people into the galleries and museums and what better way than to have some extreme "artist" as their showpiece.
i can't say that "morality trumps esthetics" because my morals don't match another's. What I can say with certainty that anything that exploits the innocent, demeans any group or person or commits unwitting cruelty upon another living thing, then calls it "art", is merely a scam artist that is only after the gasps and negative attention of a fickle public. Art, it ain't.
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